Article excerpt

The Waldensian Epic has always been given a place of choice on the shelves of most American and European libraries. The faith, courage and tenacity of these medieval dissidents remain a subject of admiration, respect, and inspiration. Fleeing organized persecution and massacre, the Vaudois from northern Italy and southern France found progressively refuge in the highest summits of the French Alps. There, through the centuries, they developed an extraordinary micro culture of survival and resilience. Grouping themselves by families, they founded tiny villages where they surprisingly developed an astonishing level of intellectual and spiritual maturity in spite of the atrocious cruelty of nature and their contemporaries.

The purpose of this paper is to present the extraordinary destiny of the smallest of those villages, and to show how, Dormihouse, the Village of the Groundhogs, located at an altitude of 6,000 feet, after surviving the tumultuous centuries of French history under the successive monarchies, became recognized in the early 20th century, through a mysterious concordance of events and circumstances, in the prestigious realms of arts, education, and religion, not only in Europe and the United States but literally in most nations in the world.

During the summer of 2010, United States Forest Service personnel conducted a study that was focused on inventorying human ecological and social impacts on dispersed campsites in a large eastern national forest. The purpose of this study is to critically examine the research method used by the Forest Service and to propose an improved inventory method. The inventory methods employed by the Forest Service personnel were questionable from a scientific standpoint, and the proposed method would be a more effective use of limited human and economic resources. The new technique would allow the Forest Service to more efficiently gather information about the distribution and condition of campsites and would help inform management decisions.

Bilingualism and Biculturalism in Quebec. Bethany Benson, Saginaw Valley State University

"Je me souviens" (1 remember) the motto of Quebec license plates, speaks to the orientation of a people whose identity has always been in the past. For over 250 years many French Canadians have 'remembered' the British conquest, which separated them from France. Although the British did not strip the French Canadians of their cultural identity, the conquering of Quebec gave rise to the idea that there were two founders of Canada: the French and the British. The French Canadians living in Quebec (or Quebecois) have consideredthemselves a separate 'society' within Canada since the British conquered them. Today, French Canadians face the challenge of keeping their heritage alive amidst both Anglo Canadian culture and an increased presence of immigrants. Canada's linguistic geography reflects historical circumstances, which can be seen through fertility, immigration and linguistic migration.

China's New Agricultural Geography: Provincial Shifts in Grain Production and Yields from 2000 to 2008. Gregory Veeck, Western Michigan University

Wide-ranging reform of China's agricultural sector over the course of the past decade is bringing about a dramatic transformation of the nation's farm sector that has gone largely unrecognized. Unprecedented levels of investment by national and provincial government agencies, matched with creative and ambitious new laws, regulations and programs dedicated to a complete overhaul of production, processing, transport, and marketing systems are converging to create an increasingly modern farm sector vastly different from that of the early reform era, admittedly also an era of great success. …